[Caterpillar] Chapter 1 - The Preserver (Patreon)

AN: At the start of this story, Naruto is over 100 years old. He has had plenty of time to change both as a person and as a shinobi. Don't expect him to be as dumb or as happy-go-lucky as in the canon after living for so long. This is a more mature, jaded version of him. As for his power level, after over 90 years of training, he is very powerful. Regarding the power level of the DC characters, it is mostly the one from DCAU and the animated movies.

Note1: this is not a hero Naruto story. Chaotic neutral alignment for the most part (check wiki for more info).

Note2: I would also like to mention that English is not my first language and that I work solo too, with no beta. Therefore, if you find any typos or grammar mistakes, feel free to point them out. I am open to constructive criticism as well.

Note3: Rated M for violence, adult themes, character deaths

Pairing: Naruto/Wonder Woman. No harem/man-whoring around. It is OTP.

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

Chapter 1 - The Preserver

"Hey! Monkey want a nanna?" a very tall and buff grey-skinned humanoid creature said mockingly while imitating a monkey. It was Lobo, one of the most infamous bounty hunters in the Galaxy.

"When I get out, I'm shoving that arrogant smirk right down your throat!" a human man said angrily from behind a glass wall. He was imprisoned in a room with glass for walls. It was none other than Superman. However, unlike his name suggested, currently, he was severely weakened due to the radiation of an artificial red sun shining in his cell.

"Ohh yeaaah! You know, I believe that Lois gal might be getting a tad lonely now that you're doing time in a cosmic petting zoo. Maybe I'll go back and cheer her up." Lobo said and rubbed his chin while laughing. "But of course, I do have to collect the bounty on this geek first," he said as he pointed at the rat-like creature he had on a leash. "Emperor Spooj got a bad temper on him."

Then, turning towards the levitating yellow creature behind him, he made a salute with his hand at his forehead and said:

"Adios, wrinkles. You want any more dorks snagged, you got my number."

The one in question, the Preserver, replied:

"Actually, there is one other being I need for my collection. The last Czarnian."

Lobo laughed out loud.

"Haha. That's rich! I'm the last Czarnian!" Then, as if it was a big secret, he told Superman: "I fragged the rest of the planet for my high school science project. I gave myself an A."

The Preserver said no more. With a wave of his hand, a glass cage fell from the ceiling on top of Lobo. Before he had the time to react, extremely potent sleeping gas poured from the floor. Lobo tried to resist and punched the glass walls but it was futile. He fell unconscious in a matter of seconds.

⁂

"Thanks for returning my uniform. Now how about my ship?" Superman said after he finished changing from Kryptonians' traditional attire into his Superman costume.

"Impossible." the Preserver said. "For ages, I've preserved many rare creatures, even some from your adopted planet, Earth."

"I'm not an animal to keep me stuck in a cage!" Superman said revolted.

"Normally, I don't take sentient beings. But you and Lobo are all that survived from your respective homeworlds. Same for this nine-tailed fox over here, named Kyuubi." the Preserver said and pointed towards the glass cage next to that of Superman.

In it, a small crimson-red fox cub was chewing on a chunk of meat several times larger than it while its 9 fluffy tails wagged lazily at its back.

"These two have adjusted well to their new surroundings. I suggest you do the same."

After the Preserver floated away, Superman furrowed his brows as he witnessed Lobo getting gassed by the two robot girls attending to his needs when he tried to escape.

A chuckle came from the cage where the small fox cub was imprisoned.

"First time getting locked up?"

Unexpectedly, it was the very deep voice of a male. Even more unexpected it was that it was speaking in English.

Superman looked at the talking fox dumbly, surprised not only at it speaking in English but also marvelling at how the huge chunk of raw meat was disappearing at a mind-boggling speed into the tiny being's jaws.

After he was done eating, Kyuubi arched its back and stretched its small limbs. A cute yip escaped from his mouth as he yawned. Then, he jumped on the comfortable-looking circular bed and started to push against the mattress with his tiny paws not unlike a cat before he finally found the perfect place. After eating a chunk of meat 10 times larger than his entire body weight, nothing was better than a sweet afternoon nap.

"Are you seriously content with staying locked up like this?!" Superman asked when he looked at the fox cub who seemed like he could not care less about their predicament.

Kyuubi opened his eyes lazily and said:

"And what would you have me do? The meat he brings is always laced with tranquillizing drugs. It saps all my strength."

Superman had an incredulous look on his face.

"Why would you keep on eating it if you knew it was drugged?!"

The fox cub let out another cute yawn before he said:

"How can I turn down free food? Relax. Everything is going according to the plan."

"What do-"

Superman did not finish his question because, at that moment, a powerful tremor shook the entire spaceship. The Preserver's ship was so large one had to measure its size using miles. For such an enormous ship to shake that badly, it spoke volumes about how powerful the attack that had impacted it must have been.

Deafening alarms started to blare and numerous robots swarmed the corridors of the ship.

Kyuubi's large ears flicked as they captured a particular sound.

"Fuuton: Vacuum Wave!"

Not only that the giant metal doors of the room were cut in half but the whip-like wind technique continued to fly and sliced all the robots on the corridor clean, from the middle.

"Hmpf! Show off!" Kyuubi said snarkily. "Why do you even keep on saying the names of your jutsu, it's not like you need to anymore. And what took you so long?! I've been locked up for 2 days already!"

The newcomer's face was hidden behind an ANBU-style white fox mask, with red lines drawn on it but Kyuubi did not need to see his face to know that he was grinning widely from one ear to another.

"They see me rollin' they hatin'."

Hearing Kyuubi starting to growl at him, the newcomer added:

"Come on! What's cooler than bursting in to save the day, saying the badass name of a cool technique and kicking everyone's ass? Hahaha, you're just jealous."

Superman looked at the man and the fox arguing with each other in an alien language. He did not understand a word of what they were saying but apparently, the man was very talented in pissing off the little fox. However, as amusing as it was to watch the nine-tailed fox cub kicking up a fuss, there were other pressing matters at hand. He decided to interrupt them.

"Hey, friend! Would you mind helping me get out of this cage?"

Naruto fiddled with the translating device installed at his belt for a moment before replying to Superman in perfect English.

"Oh wow. What is a human doing all the way here?"

"Lobo attacked me and lured me in the range of this ship and the Preserver captured us both. But I'm not a human, I'm a Kryptonian."

Though Superman could not see his expression due to the mask he was wearing, he got the feeling that he was very surprised.

"But that's not important right now." Superman said quickly "Please help me get out before the Preserver comes with reinforcements."

Naruto nodded and clenched his fist, about to punch the glass, when Kyuubi's annoyed voice came from behind.

"Hey, you asshole, free me up first!"

Naruto snorted.

"Come out yourself you lazy pig."

A "tsk" came from the fox cub who then proceeded to increase in size until he was no smaller than a horse. His previously fluffy and cute 9 tails were now much larger and apparently incredibly powerful given that the reinforced glass that had been caging him until then was smashed effortlessly with a mere swipe of one of his tails. But Kyuubi did not linger in that large size for a second longer than necessary and immediately turned back to his original appearance, that of a tiny fox cub.

A moment later, the glass imprisoning Superman was shattered with a punch from Naruto and Superman stepped out quickly, letting out a sigh of relief.

"Thank you!"

"It was nothing," Naruto said dismissively before turning his back to Superman and going back to Kyuubi. He scooped the small fox in his arms and then put him on his shoulder.

The fox then curled up into a ball of fluff and closed his eyes. It fell asleep. Strangely enough, no matter what kind of movements Naruto made, the little fox seemed like it was glued to his shoulder, not budging one bit even if Naruto were to bend down completely.

Naruto smiled under his mask and gently patted the small fox on his shoulder.

"Sleep tight, Kurama. I'll take care of these annoyances," he said and his hands began to form a series of hand-seals when another group of robots appeared at the end of the corridor. This time around, a vortex of razor-sharp wind shot from his mouth and shredded to bits everything in its way.

⁂

"Don't forget your promise, Lobo. You said that you'll leave me and everyone else on Earth alone."

"The Main Man's word is his bond, man," Lobo said.

Unlike his normally flippant and goofy attitude, the Czarnian appeared to be very serious. It seemed as though he truly lived by what he said, that he never went back on his words.

Naruto whistled impressed.

'He's a psychopath that murdered his entire race but he does have his good points too, eh?' he muttered to himself.

Not going back on one's word was something that Naruto could respect since he was exactly the same.

Lobo came to him and extended his hand for a handshake.

"I owe you one. I'll pay back this favour anytime you will need it."

And with that, he jumped on his space-bike and left the dry dock of the spaceship.

"See you around, big guy," Naruto said and waved towards Superman as he turned around. "You better not stick around. This ship will self-destruct any moment now."

Speaking of the devil, just as he finished his words, a loud but clear robotic voice was heard through the entire ship of the Preserver:

"Initializing self-destructing sequence. Remaining time until the explosion of the ion engines and reactor: 5 minutes."

As he was leaving, Naruto felt a heavy hand pat him on the shoulder. Superman's angry voice came from behind:

"Why did you do that?!"

Naruto tilted his head in confusion.

"Do what?"

Superman was even more irritated at his reaction.

"All these creatures are now going to die! I could've saved them! I could've taken them to Earth!"

Naruto shrugged his shoulders.

"I didn't know you were such a bleeding heart. It's unfortunate that they will die but it can't be helped. Would it have been better to leave this ship as it was and let it end in the wrong hands? Imagine if some space pirates took control of this ship after we left. They'd have enough firepower to even raid an entire planet."

Superman became silent. When he thought about things from that perspective he understood Naruto's point: it was much better for some animals to die than for such a large and technologically advanced ship to end up in the hands of a villain.

"You should get going. There are only 3 minutes left." Naruto said when he heard the robotic voice's countdown.

Then, turning around, he sprinted towards his own spaceship. His shadow clones had already started the engines of the ship and opened the blast doors of the dry dock so all he had to do was to just jump in and close the ship's door behind him. While he was pulling the door of his spaceship after him, Superman flew in with an urgent look on his face.

"My ship was destroyed in the fight against the Preserver. I need your help to get out of here."

Naruto did not waste any time and let him in. A moment later, the ion thrusters propelled the spaceship to several miles away. Even then, it was still too close to the Preserver's ship.

"Is that...a boom tube?!" Superman said in surprise.

Something similar to a very small wormhole was opened in the space and Naruto's Shadow Clones drove the ship right into it.

"Not exactly. It's nowhere near as precise as a boom tube but I don't have a Mother Box. That stuff is very rare and hard to come by. This is more like a wormhole. But it's the latest warp technology from Almerac so it's pretty good. It gets the job done."

⁂

Naruto was lying in his chair bonelessly, with an expression of defeat on his face.

"There's nothing about our home here either."

Kyuubi, who was awake now, headbutted Naruto gently with his snout and wrapped his 9 tails around his neck to comfort him. The shadow of a smile appeared on his face but it was not visible due to the fox mask covering it. Still, he brought his hand up to pet Kyuubi as a show of gratitude. They may love to argue with each other but, for the past +90 years, they've always been together, protecting each other's back. They were inseparable, best friends for life. A long sigh came out of his chest.

"What are you looking for?" Superman asked curiously when he came into the control room of the ship and saw the sombre mood.

It was Kyuubi who replied to him:

"Our homeworld. That's why I even let myself get captured by that creep, for us to have a legitimate reason to raid his ship and access his database."

It was not the first time the Preserver had tried to capture Kyuubi. Over the past 90 years, he had tried to do that several times but to no success. However, this time around, Naruto and Kyuubi made a plan for Kyuubi to let himself get captured so Naruto would raid his ship for information.

"The Preserver is rather infamous in the Galaxy for his hobby of collecting all kinds of rare and endangered species to preserve, even going as far as to kill for it. So it makes sense that he has a great deal of information about the Universe's geography as a whole. There was a chance that maybe he knew something about our home world since he was so adamant about capturing me all these years."

Naruto scratched at his spiky blond hair.

"This is hopeless," he said with a defeated voice. "I've travelled through all the 3600 sectors of the known Universe in search of my homeworld. I've visited all the Stellar and Planetary Systems with humanoid creatures in them and all the planets inhabited by human-like beings. I've even gone to the Green Lantern Corps' headquarters, Oa, to ask for information. But nobody has ever heard anything about the Elemental Nations. This guy, the Preserver, was my last hope."

Even with his legendary stubbornness, after almost 100 years of fruitlessly scouring the Universe for a way back home, Naruto was at the end of his wits. Finally, he realized the futility of it all. He did not even have the energy to get angry anymore.

"I'm just...tired."

A poignant silence followed.

"I'm sorry to hear that. I know how it feels to be the last of your kind." Superman said quietly. "But you can't give up on living. Though some things were lost, you can gain others in the future. My parents and my homeworld perished, but I found a new family and new friends on Earth. Now, I have one purpose: to protect my adopted home. To protect it so the Earth won't die like Krypton."

Naruto's appreciation for Superman went up a notch when he heard his words. He became silent in contemplation.

"You are more than welcome to join us. You wouldn't be the first nor the last alien to have found a home on Earth." Superman offered.

The blond couldn't suppress a snort.

"Your purpose and feelings are admirable but of all the places in this galaxy, why would I choose Earth? Haha!"

"Hey, what do you mean, what's so bad about my planet?!"

Naruto's fingers danced on the keyboard of the supercomputer of the control room and, after a few moments, a datasheet appeared on the large screen.

"As I said, during the plus 90 years that I've travelled the Universe, I visited all the planets with human-like beings. I've visited the Earth too, about 60 years ago. What's wrong with your planet? I don't know about the current situation but when I went there, there was a freaking world war."

"Your technology was one of the most backwater I've ever seen at a sentient species in the entire Universe and it went the same for the general population's mentality too. Dictatorships focused on suppressing the population, genocides, racism, and like half of the population was struggling to find something to eat from one week to another. And that's just data that I collected in a matter of days. Why would anyone willingly come to such a place?"

Superman dressed his voice awkwardly.

"There were, indeed, many issues in the past. Some of them still exist, I will not lie, but we have come a long way since then. Your information is quite outdated. Our technology exploded over the past few decades to the point where we can travel in space. Racism has been abolished in most parts of the world and there are very few dictatorships left. We have a saying on Earth: don't diss it till you try it. Maybe it won't be as bad as you think it is."

Naruto shrugged his shoulders, not very interested.

"Well, I'll have to take you to Earth anyway so we'll see then."

Naruto started typing again on the keyboard and an extremely large and detailed interstellar map appeared on the large screen. It was a map of the Milky Way Galaxy. After typing 'the Earth' in a search bar, the map was zoomed in greatly, to the point where the map of the Solar System became clear. Then, he took the coordinates of the Solar System and proceeded to start activating a new wormhole. Unlike Boom Tubes that were so precise that they could open anywhere regardless, the warp system of Almerac's spaceships could only narrow it down to Planetary Systems.

"Out of curiosity, can you open a wormhole to Rao System? Krypton's homeworld?"

Naruto turned his eyes from the control panel and looked at Superman's face searchingly. He made a humming noise as he thought.

"Hm, I do have enough fuel to go to Krypton and then to Earth... but I won't have enough to leave the Earth after that."

"You can refuel on Earth, on our Watchtower," Superman said. "As I told you, we are capable of space travel nowadays. Me flying all the way here from Earth is proof of that."

There was no reason for Naruto to actually listen to Superman's wishes. After all, he had already helped him more than enough by freeing him from the Preserver's cage and also giving him a ride back home. But, for some reason, he felt a peculiar feeling of kinship with him.

'Nagato really knew what he was talking about.'

The older Naruto got, the more he agreed with Uzumaki Nagato's beliefs: that people truly empathised and understood each other only after they felt the same pain. It was the same in this case. Although he had nothing to gain from it, Naruto decided to do Superman this favour because he felt that they were the same; the last of their kind.

Turning his attention back to the control panel of the ship, the interstellar map zoomed out and then he wrote 'Krypton' in the search bar. Then, the map of the Rao System appeared on the screen. After typing in a few more commands, the space started to crack and a wormhole appeared a short distance in front of the ship. Destination: Rao System, Krypton.

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN: I decided to slowly post my other stories here as well, together with the limes and lemons, of course.

PS: would like me to attach some Wonder Woman fan art too at every chapter?